


When the Light Beckons

by inconstancy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin should've stayed in the council chambers, Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Not Beta Read, The Force bitchslaps Anakin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29102244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconstancy/pseuds/inconstancy
Summary: Mace tells Anakin to stay put while he deals with the Chancellor. Anakin actually complies.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	When the Light Beckons

Anakin stares out the windows of the High Council Chamber. Coruscant unfolding beneath him, he reaches out in the Force. He can feel his brothers in arms around him, going about their business in the Temple, blissfully unaware of the information he’d passed to Master Windu. If he pushes further, out across the city, he can find Padme in ~~their~~ her apartment, blazing hot as he wraps his mind around her Force signature. No matter where he goes in the galaxy, he always seems to find her, to connect to her existence as a way to ground himself. The Force is relentless though, and as he focuses on her, his visions creep into the back of his mind.

Padme, the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, her face twisted in pain as she lays on a table. He can hear her calling his name, her voice broken and tears in her eyes. She gasps and pleads, and he can almost feel the pain coursing through his own body.

It’s not pain, though. It’s terror, and it coils around him, starting at the bottom and flowing up like blood, steady and racing to hit his heart. Why can’t he breathe? How is it crushing him from the inside out? There she is, slowly moving from closet to suitcase, and darkness is crowding in on her, the room closing in - and his knees hit the floor and he feels his hand on his chest, can feel the soft pressure of skin clutching at his heart - thankfully it’s skin and not his prosthetic or he might actually claw his own heart out. He’s still in the Temple, his eyes refocusing on the city below him, but breathing is still coming hard. His lungs feel huge and no matter how deep he tries to breathe in, there’s no air there to fill them. He tries to reach back into the Force, but the Force rejects him. He feels the Force encasing him, like a bubble to protect him. It refuses to let him in, but reminds him it’s there.

Time seems to come to a halt as he gasps for air. Something pushes at him through the Force, but the barrier it has created around him is sturdy, telling him to focus only on regaining his breath. The lights of Coruscant are so bright and disorienting that he has to close his eyes and reach out with his robot prosthetic to keep himself from collapsing entirely on the floor.

_"Breathe, Anakin. In and out. Come on."_

Obi-wan’s voice rings through his ears, and he is no longer 22 but 10, crying out in the middle of the night, reaching for his master’s hand in the dark. Obi-wan responds with a firm clasp of his hand and slow, measured counting, a baseline for Anakin to breathe to.

_"In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four."_

Anakin takes a deep breath in and with it comes the Force, filling his lungs once more. He opens his eyes and the pattern on the floor of the chamber grounds him back into reality. Whatever was prodding him through the Force is gone, and anxiety looms dangerously close as he tests the waters, sneaking a gentle push into the Force. It welcomes him, almost pulling towards Padme, like it knows what he’s searching for. Of course it does, it’s the Force. And Padme is there, right where he left her, packing away the last of her clothing as she prepares to leave Coruscant for the final time before her baby - _their_ baby - is due. His relief crashes over him and he pushes further, settling his thoughts once more around her signature. Around the signature that grows and grows each day within her, the beginnings of life itself.

Standing up slowly, more focused on Padme than his own actions, he moves to sit in the seat the council begrudgingly gave to him, the one he hasn’t earned as a Master but is still his. That thought pokes at his head but is brushed off as he tries to zero in on his child, the baby Padme is going to have soon. The Force burns so brightly in their child, it feels almost too big to be all for one. And it calls to him, telling him that he is so loved, that he will be so loved, that even when the Jedi find out and expel him from the order, even when Padme is asked to leave office by the Queen, when all they have is each other and this child, they will still be _complete_.

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU MADDIE FOR INSPIRING ME WITH SO MUCH PAIN THAT I HAD TO WRITE THIS AND ALSO FOR PROVIDING THE TITLE.
> 
> Thank you to the entire Space Girls discord server for completing my heart.


End file.
